It was only after he was back in his squat with all of the security reactivated that he felt safe enough to relax again. “What a helluva day.” Not wasting any time, he tied the top half of his issued coveralls around his waist, grabbed what was left of a six-pack, and made his way to the roof. A light breeze was blowing, taking some of the edge off of the oppressive Atlanta heat as it radiated off of all of the concrete and asphalt. He hadn’t even had a chance to bring the first beer to his lips when he noticed a blur of motion out of the corner of his right eye. Reflexively, he dropped the beer and turned to face whatever it was. It was too fast, but some instinct inside of him told John that it wasn’t a threat. His mind processed everything in a flash; it was Sera, and she was clearly distressed. Her arms flew around him, gripping him tightly and desperately. He returned the embrace, again on automatic, before his words found him.
“Sera? What’s—” Before John could utter another word, he found himself occupied with the most passionate kiss he’d ever received. After another moment of being startled, John returned the kiss with just as much feeling. He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her in close. He was confused, excited, dumbstruck, and about a dozen other emotions all coming almost too fast for him to process. The kiss lingered on . . . and it was good. He didn’t want it to stop, not the kiss, and not at just the kiss. Hell, it had literally been years . . . but good judgment and caution won out against desire. Finally, but without a sense of urgency, he slowly pulled away, looking down into Sera’s eyes as they slowly opened; two molten orbs of amber awash in tears and light.
“You were gone,” she said. “You were there, then you were gone. And I know it was Shen Xue.”
John stared for a moment, then chuckled while he ran his hand through his hair. “You’re right. You were right ’bout her, too. She’s gone over to that rotten bastard Verd, completely.” He looked down at his feet before meeting her eyes again. “I was sent after her, to bring her in—or kill her. It almost came to that, but she escaped. She’s a helluva fighter, Sera; too dangerous for her own good.”
“You don’t understand. It isn’t she. Fei Li is not there. It is Shen Xue. And the sword . . . it is celestial, John. It is like me. It can even hurt me. You, it would obliterate, if the full scope of its power were unleashed. You were in terrible, deadly danger!” Her arms tightened around him again.
John grinned lopsidedly: a real grin, as opposed to the affected ones he sometimes wore. “Darlin’, we’re all in terrible, deadly danger, all the time. In peace an’ in war; doesn’t make much of a difference. I had a job that needed doin’.” He sobered then. “Had to protect all of the people that trust me; my comrades, my neighborhood . . . and you.”
And then, suddenly, she went still. She blinked, and looked down, as if realizing only now what she was doing. Her arms loosened, and she took a single, small step away. The distance between them was only inches now, closer than he had ever allowed anyone. But could it be closed again?
She looked up. “I have . . . enormous . . . feelings . . . for you, John Murdock,” she said. “This is a new thing. The Siblings do not themselves have such feelings. And yet, the Infinite is not saying it is not permitted . . .”
John took a small step towards her, closing the distance between the two of them again. This is the part where I’m struck by a lightning bolt, or burst into flame, or explode or something . . . yeah, worth it. “I won’t pretend to know or believe in that . . . but I do know this.” He slowly—very slowly—allowed his hands to hold Sera by her shoulders. “Anyone that would say that this is wrong, well, they just couldn’t be right. So . . . is this all right? With you?”
She blinked again, slowly, and a little smile creased those perfect lips. “Yes,” she said simply, and lifted her chin a little, plainly waiting for him to kiss her.
John pulled her close, still grinning while he leaned in for the kiss. She started to change subtly, as he did so. Her hair started to dim, from fire to a shining fall of hair; the wings began to fade. He stopped short, holding up a hand to her face. “No. You’re perfect the way y’are, darlin’.” As he caressed her face, it changed back to her true form where he touched, spreading until the changes had completely reverted.
“I am not perfect, John,” she said, seriously. “Perfection is stagnation, and stagnation is death. I would not wish to be perfect. Even the Infinite does not seek perfection.”
“Eye of the beholder, darlin’. Now, shaddup an’ kiss me.” He finished the sentence with a kiss deep enough to match her first one. In that moment, the world could have ended for John Murdock, and he would have not been more content.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kingdom
MERCEDES LACKEY AND CODY MARTIN
Dominic Verdigris had gotten to where he was because he was always one step ahead of the opposition.
And now that he knew there was an opposition . . . that hadn’t changed.
* * *
“I think I need a moonbase, next,” Verdigris said.
“A moonbase, Dom?” Khanjar didn’t turn to face him; she was too busy taking in the sight through the viewport. A typhoon was fast approaching from the west, causing massive waves to crash against the rocks at the base of the mountain cliffs. This particular retreat of Verdigris’ was located on Isla de Serpiente, a volcanic island off the coast of Peru. It was so named for the shape of the island, which resembled a coiled snake; the active but stable volcano was located inside of the highest mountain at the “head” of the snake right about where its “eye” would be if seen in profile. It made for a very impressive view from the air.
“Well, what else do I have left? The Russian submarine was just recently refurbished, but I don’t feel like taking a trip underwater anytime soon. And this place doubles as an airship; at least this section, anyways. A moonbase is the next big step; wouldn’t hurt just in case something cataclysmic happens to this wonderful blue marble of a world, besides.” He frowned a little. “And if I have to, it would be a good place to skip out in case the Kriegers . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Khanjar didn’t finish the sentence either. Just at the moment she didn’t want to ruffle any feathers by pointing out that if the Kriegers were as powerful as the Deva had shown Verd, the moon wouldn’t be far enough to escape their clutches. When you were living on the edge of a volcano, it wasn’t a good idea to upset the master of the house. The prospect of Verdigris being out of moves wasn’t exactly a comfortable one for Khanjar, either. She didn’t think the Kriegers would have any use for her.
“Would you care to see Harmony now?” she asked instead. “The shuttle from the mainland docked just ahead of the storm.”
Dominic looked up from his desk, taken out of his moment of brooding. “Yes, yes. Have her come up immediately. You know what to do, my dear; keep on your toes.”
Khanjar spoke briefly into the microphone pinned to her collar. Harmony would be escorted from her guest room to the office by no less than four guards, all of whom would be completely armored and helmeted. No nice bare skin for her to get so much as a finger on. Certainly, she was their ally. Certainly, so far as they were aware, when she was bought, she stayed bought. But it was Khanjar’s job to take no chances. She, by nature, suspected everyone and everything. It was one of the reasons that she had stayed alive this long and had become as rich as she had in Verdigris’ employ.
Harmony bothered her. It was not only that the woman’s metahuman power was . . . unsettling. It was that she had come out of nowhere, and risen to this current position, bypassing most of the normal rungs on the ladder. What was worse insofar as Khanjar’s feelings of stability were concerned, she wasn’t the only one who had done so lately. Khanjar preferred things to proceed in an orderly, predictable fashion. Lately, Dom had been making moves she considered risky—first in hiring Harmony, then, more alarmingly, allying with the Chinese woman. That one was dangerous . . . and Dom refused to listen to her about the General.
Sti
ll . . . this woman was nothing like Shen Xue. She was not arrogant, she did not presume, and she didn’t hold herself as if she thought she was Verd’s equal—or superior. She knew her place; below Dom, and more importantly, below Khanjar herself. Harmony was a hireling: useful, but not valued beyond what she was paid to do.
There was nothing about Harmony that seemed to inspire Dom to take the risks he was taking with the General. Thank the gods. What was it about the General that so fascinated him, and made him reckless? There were moments when Khanjar even wondered if Dom was toying with the notion of . . . surely not. Surely he knew better than to try and replace her. Still . . . the idea was chilling. Someone who knew as much as Khanjar did could only be “replaced,” never “retired.” Dom’s usual generosity with his employees would not, could not, extend to a professional assassin who knew every detail of his security arrangements. But then . . . everything had changed since the Deva had visited him. Would it come to that, where he would have to sacrifice her to save himself? Of course it would. She harbored no illusions where Dominic Verdigris was concerned. He feigned “caring” very well, but when it came down to it, there was only one person of importance in Verd’s life, and that was himself. Everyone and everything else was just an accessory or a tool. She resolved to redouble her efforts at making herself indispensable.
The office door slid open, and Harmony entered with her escort; it was plain to see that the security guards were nervous around her, though they did their best to hide it. Strange. She had looked very, very American when she had been with Echo, as if she could have been sitting behind the desk of a receptionist in any corporation, or been going to classes in any university. Now, however, there was something exotic about her. Her hair had been arranged in a loose fashion faintly reminiscent of an ancient Grecian statue, and the draped dress she wore only emphasized the resemblance. She appeared quite relaxed, even a little amused, and when Khanjar looked briefly into her eyes, she got the unsettling impression of great age.
“You sent for me, and here I am, Verdigris,” Harmony said, with an artful little gesture, with the merest hint of a bow in it. “What can I do for you?”
“Thank you for joining us, my dear. We have a great deal to discuss, but first let me compliment you on your handling of the last few affairs, and a bit of a surprise following the necessarily gruesome spectacle we had to make of Tesla. Very tidy, natural-looking deaths, I commend you.” Verdigris flashed his best smile, but Khanjar had learned to read his moods. He was anything but happy at the moment. The failure with the trap in Atlanta Underground was still haunting him. “Please, take a seat.”
Harmony did so, gracefully. Khanjar admired her dispassionately. There was nothing of the “old” Harmony about her, now; how had she managed to feign naïveté, inexperience, the callowness of youth? She must be a superb actress. Still, she noticed a bit of steel in Harmony’s look as she gazed at Verdigris, betraying a slight irritation with the billionaire.
“Thank you,” Harmony said. “I do take pride in my work, after all. I gather this meeting is in regard to our arrangement? One final task?”
“Yes, of course,” Verdigris said with a smile.
“One final task, and the prize will be mine?” Harmony leaned forward, her eyes locked on Verdigris.
“Absolutely, my dear,” he smiled, though he spared a look up to Khanjar before continuing. “It appears we have some malcontents brewing revolution within our own ranks.”
“By which you mean Echo, of course,” Harmony said smoothly. “And Dominic, please don’t tell me this surprised you, I know you are much too intelligent to think that you could simply walk in and take over an organization like Echo without problems from malcontents.”
“Yes, well.” He sniffed, mock hurt playing over his face. “You would have thought that, as ineffective as Tesla had been since the Invasion, they’d at least have given me a chance before fomenting revolt. I would never have let the Mountain suicide so spectacularly, for one thing. Waste of resources. Well. They have been commendably cagey about it. Look here.” He pointed to one of the pop-up monitors that rose silently from the edge of the desk nearest to Harmony.
Her brows creased as she watched the data stream scroll by. “Dominic, I’m not . . . particularly technically ept. What on earth am I looking at?”
“To sum it up, I’ve been keeping tabs on nigh everyone in my employ, particularly everyone in Echo. As you said, these sorts of takeovers can be . . . tricky. From what I’ve been able to gather tapping into a series of phones, computers, and physical surveillance, I think it’s safe to say that there’s a small group of personnel that wish to oust me. And they might have found the means to do so.” Verdigris tapped on the desk twice, and all of the screens now displayed the same image: a scan of a paper document.
Well, it was a scan of something on paper. Whatever it was, it was completely unreadable. It was as if the scan had been taken while the letters were moving from one bizarre, alien language to another.
Harmony blinked. “How . . . intriguing. What is that supposed to be, do you know?”
Khanjar felt herself grow a little more alert. Harmony recognized that . . . or at least, recognized something like it.
“It’s supposed to be one of the original copies of the Echo charter—the one that belonged to Yankee Doodle,” Verdigris replied. “If legend is true, all the original signers of the charter got a copy.” He laughed a little, a laugh with no humor in it. “And if legend is true, they all had some sort of spell cast on them so the copies were—like that. You couldn’t read them, and you couldn’t use code-breaking techniques on them because the letters moved and changed all the time.” He frowned. “I’m still determined to fix that little problem with this image. An original would be much more useful . . . but that’s something for me to worry about. The point is, the conspirators are going after a copy of the charter, and I think they might actually have one. I’m pretty certain who two of them are. Yankee Pride and Ramona Ferrari. Yankee Pride, well, he’s obvious. I ousted him when we took Tesla out.”
“Ramona Ferrari?” Harmony’s brows arched. “The detective? Why in heaven’s name do you suspect her? She’s nothing, not meta, not . . . attractive . . . oh, she has a certain rudimentary cleverness, but . . .”
Verdigris spread his hands wide. “One and the same. She’s just far enough below the usual radar, since she’s not an op, and as a detective, she has a lot of latitude to work within the rest of Echo. That, and she’s annoyingly dogged in her pursuit of her goals. Normally a trait that I’d love in an employee, but this one isn’t the sort to be bought out by me.”
“Well, you seem to have figured out who your enemies are, and you know what they intend . . . why don’t you just eliminate them both and have done with it?” Harmony tapped a long, graceful finger on the side of her face. “I really don’t see what I can help you with here.”
Verdigris shook his head, smiling, as if he was correcting a mistaken child. “No, no, Harmony. I’m all about not wasting effort, and to kill them outright wouldn’t only be wasted effort, it’d also make martyrs of them. Not to the masses, or even most of Echo initially, but martyrs have a habit of growing followings. What I have in mind is a bit more . . . artful. When we’re done—and I do mean we—their deaths will have served more than the singular purpose of securing my position as the head of Echo. Are you beginning to understand?”
Harmony sighed. “Since Jack made himself scarce, you want me to take over Blacksnake and engineer something suitably appalling for them. That way, once again, Blacksnake is reinforced as the villain, and you get to play the astonished and grieving Father of Echo’s Children.”
“Not in so many words. I’ll certainly help you to make sure that it all turns out poetic and beneficial enough. But yes. Your reward hinges upon it, shall we say?” That shark look, eyes shiny and black, that Verd’s eyes sometimes had, came back right then. Khanjar didn’t like that look, but she had come to expect it over the yea
rs.
“You hold all the cards. But Blacksnake is notoriously misogynistic, Dominic. Will your operatives take orders from me?” Harmony’s eyes were just as cold in that moment. “Or will you let me show them why they should?”
“You forget. The world runs on one thing; it isn’t strength, or fear, or power. It’s money. Money can buy and control all of those things. And no one has more money than I do. They’ll listen to you, Harmony,” Verdigris let the words hang in the air for a moment, “because I’ll tell them to. Agreed?”
She nodded. “Agreed. You might have to make some examples.”
The cold look vanished from Verdigris’ eyes, and he waved a hand dismissively. “Cost of doing business. I’ll attend to it if and when the issue crops up. I expect regular reports and will need to approve of any plans before they’re put into effect. Any other questions?”
Harmony laughed. It had a disconcertingly young sound. “Oh, Dominic, how soon you forget. I am she of the hourly reports, remember? You had to ask me to make them less frequent on the last op.”
“Yes, well. Call me a stickler for the details when they’re important.” He gestured towards the doorway. “Be sure to help yourself to any refreshments in the anteroom on your way out. We’ll be in touch, Harmony.”
“I think I’ll leave via sub, considering the storm,” she replied, and rose. “And considering the storm . . . I’ll refrain from eating until we’re clear. Unless you count that charming receptionist as refreshments.”
He waved a finger reprovingly. “Good help is hard to find. It’s why you’re still here. Leave her be.”
She laughed. “Then I’ll just have to get some dockside take-away when we hit port. Ta-ta, Dominic. First report will be in your mail when we have ’net.” She rose as gracefully as she had sat down, and winked. “I’ll just see myself out. I know the way to the submarine docks.”
She made good on her word, and the door slid shut behind her. Verdigris waited for several long moments after the door closed before he turned to Khanjar, fingers steepled in front of his chest. “So, my dear. What’re your thoughts on how things are going to proceed?”
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 44